This one weird trick could fix the Senate

All voters are equal, but some voters are more equal than others. And the most equal of all live in the Equality State. 

Wyoming has fewer than 435,000 eligible voters but gets two senators—the same as California, which has over 67 times as many eligible voters. 

Republicans’ advantage in low-population states is part of what makes the Senate a deeply anti-democratic institution. In fact, two blue states, California and New York, together contain more people than 19 red states combined, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. 

That gives Republicans 38 senators—over a third of the chamber—pretty much guaranteed. New York and California give Democrats a total of four.

That means a minority of the population—one that is whiter and more conservative than the country at large—gets to decide what passes Congress, even when more progressive legislation is supported by most of the country. Heck, Republicans regularly win control of the Senate even when they win fewer overall votes in Senate races. 

For example, Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso may have won reelection this year by a whopping 51 percentage points, but that figures out to less than 135,000 votes. Compare that to California, where Democrat Adam Schiff won by a relatively narrow 18 points—or, in other words, more than 2.7 million votes.

But there is a simple, if difficult, way to fix minority rule in the Senate: Make new states.